Alcestis
A Thessalian king has been granted escape from death if he can find someone willing to die in his place, and only his wife agrees; the household is preparing her funeral when Heracles arrives as an unwitting guest expecting hospitality. Mourning, a drunken visitor and a bargain struck with the Fates run side by side. Performed in the fourth slot usually given to a satyr play, it is the earliest of the surviving works and the hardest to assign to a genre.
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Genre
Archetype (Jung / Campbell)
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Culture / tradition
Closest analogues
- 48% · 8 shared
- 46% · 11 shared
- 45% · 8 shared
- 45% · 7 shared
- 45% · 7 shared
- 43% · 10 shared